ROLLING on a training mat in the cavernous indoor training centre of Sports Authority of Indias sprawling complex in Calcuttas Salt Lake area, Lakshmi Sabar looks diminutive and lost. For this seven-year-old girl from Purulia, its a far cry from the cramped and low mud-and-thatch home she comes from in the parched astelands of West Bengal, where she survived on once-a-day boiled rice meals, and rats, birds and snakes when the family hunted. She never went to school. Last year, the police killed her father, who made palm-leaf and grass brooms for a living, because he belonged to a tribe which the British government branded as one with "criminal propensities" a century ago. The stigma refuses to go. But when S A Is coaches travelled to Purulia, in the heart-land of the 15,000-strong Kheria Sabar denotified criminal tribe community, to scout for sporting talent, they loved Lakshmis easy cartwheels and somersaults. Last fort night, she joined the first group of 33 Kheria Sabar children hand-picked by S A I coaches for training in archery, volleyball and gymnastics. With this, the Kheria Sabar children, including 12 girls, joined the 200-odd promising and established sportspersons who live and train at the premier 44-acre complex. Says Somen Chowdhury, S A Is director- incharge in Calcutta: "This is a revolutionary move towards bringing a traditionally persecuted community into the mainstream."